Google expert at antitrust trial says government underestimates competition for online ad dollars

Federal regulators who say Google holds an illegal monopoly over the technology that matches online advertisers to publishers are vastly underestimating the competition the tech giant faces, an expert hired by Google testified Thursday. Mark Israel, an economist who prepared an expert report on Google’s behalf, said the government’s claims that Google holds a monopoly over advertising technology are improperly focused on a narrow market the government defines as “open web display advertising,” essentially the rectangular ads that appear on the top and along the right hand side of a web page when a consumer browses the web on a desktop computer.